The transition from the dating script to the hooking up one has been well researched by social scientists. But the case is quite different with respect to philosophers. To my knowledge, Rocha’s The Ethics of Hooking Up is the only book length philosophical treatment of the subject, and there are less than a handful of philosophical papers on the topic.  So, Rocha’s book is certainly timely. And it has much going for it: the book is well written and clearly argued; his research is widespread and comprehensive including a wealth of references to social science research; and the book contains a great discussion of consent. Yet, as I will say in my closing remarks, there is a surreal air engulfing his discussion and his conclusion of the contemporary hooking up scene. 

Prior to the 1990s, potential sexual partners typically followed a dating script. In such a setting, one person, usually the man, would ask another person out for a date. Such dates were planned ahead of time: when and where to meet, and what they were going to do, e.g., going to a movie, dinner, a dance, a nightclub etc. Though some level of sexual interaction might occur during or at the end of the evening, this was not ‘a given’, especially when two people first started dating. Though dates did not necessarily end in committed relationships, such a relationship was at least a possibility in the dating script. The hook up script is much different. First, there is no prior planning between two people. While groups of people might make plans — to go to a nightclub, for example — “hooking up” with someone typically happens toward the end of an evening in an (ostensibly at any rate) unplanned manner. Some sexual interaction is expected in such situations, though there is a great deal of variance – from kissing to sexual intercourse. Hooks ups are non-committal. This isn’t to say that one (or perhaps even both) person(s) don’t have any thoughts about a possible future commitment; but that is not part of the hook up script. It is this unplanned, non-committal, potentially sexual interaction that Rocha wants to analyze ethically. 

He begins to do so in Chapter 1 by claiming that “the moral agent wants to ensure that the hook up will be permissible – it is not sufficient for the moral agent that the odds and good luck will likely make the hook up turn out to be permissible since they usually do not turn out that way” (2).In Chapter 2, Rocha considers consent, which involves both an intent to make an agreement and also actions in accordance with those intentions. Consent, he claims, also has a temporal element: it can occur beforehand or contemporaneously with an action. The latter sort of consent in particular can be rescinded as various actions progress. Consent also varies in normative strength, from weak to strong. Finally, in Chapter 2, Rocha considers the three standard requirements of consent: free/non-coerced, adequate information, and competency. 

In Chapters 3 through 5, Rocha demonstrates how, in his view, hook ups very rarely meet consent requirements adequately: “aggressive hook ups” fail to meet the non-coercion requirement; hook ups without a prior discussion of what the parties agree to typically fail the adequate information requirement, and drugs and/or alcohol typically preclude the competency criterion. 

Moreover, as Rocha argues in Chapter 6, even if consent were fully achieved in a hook up that would not make it morally acceptable since more than consent is required in such interactions. The reasons for this are that “hooking up leaves people vulnerable and needy, hooking up necessarily involves sexually objectifying people, and hooking up as a practice is currently constituted in sexist ways” (121). To avoid these problems, in a hook up, a moral agent “must obtain consent, [in a robust fashion]…, be generally respectful, be beneficent …, and provide the other person with a basis for trust. While doing these things may not be easy, they are both feasible and necessary for morally responsible hook ups” (146).   

In the first chapter of his book, Rocha says, “The changes I am recommending may be so significant that the view begins to look like a reduction ad absurdum: if hooking up requires this much change to be permissible, then maybe it is not permissible” (15). I would alter this statement slightly to say ‘if hooking up requires this must change, then it is no longer a hook up.’ Indeed, I’m not sure how many sexual encounters – hook ups or otherwise – would meet Rocha’s very ‘thick’ moral standards. This isn’t to say that Rocha’s book isn’t worth reading, since it is. It’s just that I’m not sure he is talking about what is typically understood as a hook up.

Robert Scott Stewart, Ph.D., is a Professor of Philosophy at Cape Breton University (Canada). He is co-author of Talking About Sex (Broadview, 2015) and co-editor of Expanding and Restricting the Erotic: A Critique of Current and Past Norms (Brill, 2020). 

Categories: Ethics, Sexuality

Keywords: sexuality, ethics, hook up